Küssnacht and Belgium commemorate Queen Astrid on the 90th anniversary of her death
Keystone-SDA
Representatives of the Belgian embassy, the Swiss district and the local population are honouring Queen Astrid at a ceremony on Friday. She died 90 years ago at the age of 29 in a car accident between Küssnacht and Merlischachen.
+Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox
On August 29, 1935, King Leopold III, Queen Astrid and their chauffeur set off on a trip along Lake Lucerne. At the wheel was the king, who was on holiday in Central Switzerland with his wife. They were staying at the Villa Haslihorn in St Niklausen, casnton Lucerne.
+ How Queen Victoria transformed the Swiss tourism industry
On the wet road, the Packard convertible skidded and crashed into a tree. Queen Astrid was thrown out of the car. She died at the scene of the accident. The king escaped without serious injury.
Just ten months later, the Astrid Chapel was completed at the site of the accident. The annual memorial service has been held there ever since. Representatives from the Belgian embassy and the district of Küssnacht also take part.
In 2015, the current monarch King Philippe was also present to commemorate his deceased grandmother.
Translated from German by DeepL/ts
We select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools to translate them into 0045nglish. A journalist then reviews the translation for clarity and accuracy before publication.
Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. The news stories we select have been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team from news agencies such as Bloomberg or Keystone.
If you have any questions about how we work, write to us at english@swissinfo.ch
